Description of the Prior Art
Foundation garments, and particularly brassieres, are designed to provide both comfort and support for breasts. Ideally the breasts should be firmly supported without the imposition of inimical force upon the breasts and particularly without any localized protrusion into the breasts by the structural members of the garment, such as stiffeners or an underwire.
At present, the breast pockets of most garments are either comprised entirely of fabric or provided with an underwire which conforms to the contour of the lower portion of the breast and provides the structural rigidity necessary to maintain the breast pocket against the torso of the wearer. Combinations of the fabric structure and underwire structure have been provided and, in addition, garments with stiffeners and various stays strategically located have also been provided.
In general, it is recognized that the underwire type garment will provide maximum breast support with a minimum of creep, i.e. a minimum of travel of the brassiere breast pocket periphery from the torso of the wearer onto the breast portion. However, the use of underwire in the breast pocket militates against affording the flexibility which allows the breast pockets to adjust to the various positions the breast takes as the wearer assumes different positions. To date, it has been customary to provide an underwire casing for each underwire, which casing is made of non-stretchable fabric such as woven cotten or woven synthetic. Efforts have been made to provide underwire garments with flexibility, however, until now the efforts have generally been directed to providing external means to impose greater force to maintain the underwire in a fixed location. The brassiere seen in U.S. Pat. No. 2,900,981 (Herbener) issued Aug. 25, 1959, is illustrative. Therein hoop members are employed to transmit forces generated by body movement to the underwire elements which are located in pockets formed of zig-zag stitch material.